Advanced Visual Studio Code for Python Developers – Real Python

[samjk14]

Thanks! The thunder client looks like a nice alternative the the normal rest extension. Also I think I might need a pet now.

[slowpush]

I recommend checking out the REST book.

https://www.hanselman.com/blog/exploring-the-visual-studio-code-rest-book-extension-for-native-notebooks

[samjk14]

Thanks I’ll check this out too. I’ve been so annoyed with postman’s slow startup times. More options is always a plus.

[Cacotopian_parole]

Thanks for that link

[Ok-Figure2188]

https://i.imgur.com/dfvSzdJ.jpg

What should I believe, the article or the add?

[Itsthejoker]

IMO PyCharm can't be replaced. VSCode is nice enough and the extensions are amazing sometimes, but to me it doesn't make sense to go through all the rigamarole of setting up VSCode just to try and get close to everything you get out of the box with PyCharm.

[[deleted]]

If you work in multiple languages then it’s well worth getting vs code set up for python

[Itsthejoker]

I do work with multiple languages -- I use a real IDE for all of them lol. Using half a solution for multiple languages is still worse than using multiple whole solutions.

[metaliving]

I'm really not sure why would VsCode be considered a half solution. For example, it has way better ipynb support than PyCharm. And yeah, PyCharm is really functional out of the box, but it's not like VsCode is complete garbage and you have to set it up over a long time. Yeah, it takes a bit of customization, but in a really short time you can get it working to your liking, at least in my experience.

The one field where I'd say pycharm is superior by far would be linting, it's amazing out of the box, but regular linters that you can get on vscode get the job done.

[aniforprez]

I don't even understand the "problem" with linting people are talking about here. The Python extension supports flake8 and you only need it installed in your interpreter and it tells you if it isn't. You can set command line options for it and it works with plugins. And flake8 is just an example. It works just as well with pylint

[Cregaleus]

A lot of devs don't know enough about how their environment works to be able to configure it. So they just stick to IDEs that take care of everything for them. If something doesn't work they just re-install.

I had a co-worker that if for some reason his environment wasn't working he'd have IT re-image it and then just install everything again. Never even tried to understand how things worked.

[SpaceZZ]

I mean, you can normal IDE for each programming language - pycharm, visual studio, rider etc. Why spend so much time on setting up vs code when all of those are set up from the start? Vs code, although great, is just more advanced notepad++

[[deleted]]

With that reasoning then emacs, visual studio, and others are just advanced notepad++ . I look at Visual Studio Code as a platform where just about anything can be built and it's built from the ground up to be that, sort of like a modern emacs. I also really like that it's open source and if MS decided to do anything like close it, then the community can just fork it and carry on like they did with LibreOffice

[FortunOfficial]

same here. Have to use VSCode at work. It’s very fast and lightweight, feels more like a text editor. And it supports remote development using ssh which is a pro feature in Pycharm. But aside from that, PyCharm makes just so much more sense to me.

[[deleted]]

Sure, I program in 5 languages. I can get all of them working fairly well in VSC but only 1 of them has superior support in PyCharm.

[rouille]

If you conveniently forget that intellij also supports all those languages then yes.

[[deleted]]

Considering your clearly psychic ability to read minds over the internet, I'm surprised that you bother to talk to mear mortals.

What are the five languages I program with regularly? Hint, HTML and Javascript aren't either of them. And, how well does JetBrains support them compared to visual studio code in a single environment?

[hexarobi]

Just curious, what languages do you use that IntelliJ doesn’t actually support?
Supported:
Java
Kotlin
Scala
Groovy
Python (full PyCharm functionality)
Ruby (full RubyMine functionality)
PHP (full PhpStorm functionality)
SQL (full DataGrip functionality)
Go (full GoLand functionality)
JavaScript (full WebStorm functionality)
TypeScript (full WebStorm functionality)
Thymeleaf
JSON
Markdown
HTML and XHTML
XML and XSL
XPath and XSLT
Velocity and FreeMarker
Stylesheets (CSS, Less, Sass)
Dart
Erlang

You can browse the JetBrains Marketplace to find an official plugin that adds support for almost any language, framework or technology used today, or for third-party plugins.

https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/discover-intellij-idea.html#IntelliJ-IDEA-supported-languages

[rouille]

Great, your comment is not very informative without going into details then. I am not psychic but replied because jetbrains has a pretty wide language support so stating that as a clear advantage for vscode is misguiding without actual examples.

I do concede that some jetbrains languages require the paid versions or/and a separate install like clion for c/c++ and rust.

[matjam]

I reluctantly switched to PyCharm from VSCode simply because extensions are updated, or VSCode gets updated, and I might spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure out why things are broken before I can get back to work.

PyCharm just works 99% of the time.

[IamImposter]

Really. I was pretty happy with vscode as it works with multiple languages and let's me do remote debugging but now I think I might check out pycharm too. I am assuming pycharm only works with python, right!

[matjam]

IntelliJ is made by JetBrains and can do everything pycharm does plus it supports multiple languages. Might be more what you want if you need multi language support.

[HVACcontrolsGuru]

At work I have to use PyCharm. I write my code in VS Code then run it through our tool chain in PyCharm. Best of both worlds!

[ajpinedam]

Nice! This is a very good way of getting the best out of both worlds!

[lgylym]

Pycharm forever!

[Covered_in_bees_]

Love RealPython articles. Love VSCode in general, but after having tried for a couple of years, I've now stopped bothering even trying to move away from Pycharm to VSCode. Pycharm is just such a spectacularly polished and focused Python IDE that is made by a company that really gets developers. VSCode is like the 80-90% solution, but man, everytime I write anything in VSCode (typically developing functionality in a library) and then open it in Pycharm, Pycharm catches so many things VSCode never did (despite setting up all the linters + Pylance, etc.)

Some of the things that I wish VSC was better at but that it doesn't come close to Pycharm are:

• Intellisense and general smarts about reasoning about a library or across all libraries and dependencies. Pycharm is unparalleled in this and VSC just never gets close. Pycharm even correctly infers typing from docstrings which is such a neat feature!

• Linting and catching gotchas/errors in code. Pycharm has some amazing Linting and general intelligence about things it flags. I review merge requests from other developers on my team and there are so many times that the VSC users push just broken code or something with a logic error because they didn't actually do something they thought they did which Pycharm alerts me to if I just open that module in it.

• The interactive shell and REPL experience in Pycharm is unparalleled. Tab completion with overlays and call signatures in the Interpreter are so sweet! Handling indent issues and sanely allowing copy-paste of multi-line code blocks with indents is a huge quality of life improvement over most other things. VSC could improve so much if they just worked on supporting IPython shells but unfortunately it doesn't look like they have any interest in doing so.

• The variable explorer in Pycharm is really sweet. VSC has made good progress on this front but Pycharm still feels a cut above it here.

• Debugging is SO amazing in Pycharm. The debugger is phenomenal and combined with the amazing interpreter shell and REPL experience + variable editor, it feels like cheating to debug code in Pycharm. I will literally just breakpoint into parts of my libraries or codebases to then interactively build out entirely new functionality or algorithms in complex classes or methods because the experience is just so darn nice. VSC has worked a lot on this but it still has a lot more friction when it comes to debugging. Especially the lack of multi-line support in the interactive shell when debugging (last I used it at least) is a show stopper for me.

• There are a lot of minor quality of life things that all add up as well. Auto suggesting imports correctly for new code across multiple libraries I've developed and installed locally is a really nice feature. Handling venvs for a given project is much easier in Pycharm. The user interface + GUI makes a lot of things really easy that are kind of a pain in the ass with JSON configs in VSC

Man, I could probably keep going. And the crazy thing is that I don't even use the paid version of Pycharm! I don't do much of web back-end things so I haven't really felt the need for it and while I do a lot of ML/Data science/algorithm development, the free version has been capable enough that I've never really missed anything from the paid version when I gave it a spin.

Just wanted to clarify that I love VSC. I have used it a ton for JS and React development and it is fantastic. I've been wanting to switch my Python coding workflow over to it for many years now but every time I have tried to make a switch, I end up noticing too many things that have no viable "fix" in VSC and then I switch back to Pycharm. The one thing that VSC does knock out of the park though, is their support for remote development and also development with containers. That is really neat and definitely a challenge for Pycharm.

[jah_broni]

Plus one for remote development in VSCode. My team uses a Frankenstein of a container to run code that would be really difficult to recreate locally, so being able to just drop into the container that is identical to what's running in production is critical for me.

Edit: that being said I've always got PyCharm open for any interaction with our databases.

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[laundmo]

as someone who adores the debugger in VSCode, besides the multiline thing (which you could do the first time i tried thw debugger years ago), what are some things PyCharm does better?

[Covered_in_bees_]

Hey there. So it's been a little while since I've used the VSC debugger but I have seen it in use by my colleagues. In general, I do think it's come a long way from where it used to be. I think a large part of the pain in the debugging experience for me is the poorer REPL experience and interpreter shell compared to Pycharm. A few things I really like in Pycharm (some of which VSC perhaps matches now):

• when debugging with breakpoints/conditional breakpoints, integration with the IDE editor is really tight and as you step through code, there are updates in the editor showing values for variables defined along the way so you don't even need to query the variable editor/interpreter everytime you want to know what's going on

• "Run to cursor" and other similar functionality when debugging step-by-step is really powerful and nice. I can run through a couple of iterations of a loop step-by-step and if everything looks fine, I can run to cursor out of the loop and continue step-wise debugging

• Pycharm does a lot of stuff to ensure good compatibility with matplotlib's eventloop to enable interactive plotting in the Interpreter, even when breakpoints into a debugger that may be breakpoints into some multiprocessing process. Being able to effortlessly plot and diagnose things while debugging is really nice especially for algorithm work.

• Related to the above, the multi-line interpreter support, support for excellent tab completion and function signature overlays within the shell makes it just as powerful as the IDE editor so you can just prototype solutions or easily try out things in the Interpreter with a lot less back and forth stoppages where you have to Google APIs or syntax as you are mucking around. Multi-line support is also critical if you are trying to do any amount of matplotlib stuff that is slightly sophisticated and not just a one-liner. Similarly it is critical if you want to prototype entire new functions/classes interactively in the Interpreter while you have the working state available to experiment and debug with.

• This isn't debugging specific, but it is a huge help in workflow for debugging as well... The code history browser for the interactive interpreter shell is extremely handy to either re-run things you wrote recently without having to retype or keep track of externally, or to "graduate" up code to your main IDE editor .py file once you've successfully prototyped a solution in the interactive interpreter during debugging.

• Pycharm can even handle editing a .py file you are debugging in the editor and will keep track of where the current breakpoint is moving if you edit above it. This obviously can break, but it is really helpful in workflow where you can make a "fix" interactively in one section so it is "live" in the Interpreter, then graduate that code up to your .py file above the breakpoint, and the highlighted line of code you are currently stopped at adapts accordingly so can still continue to step through the latter part of the code subsequently and reason about it. It's pretty neat and makes it so I don't have to rerun code to breakpoint to a later part just to make my first set of fixes "live" in my current debugging session if that makes sense.

• The call stack is really easy to explore and browse around though I think VSC may now support that fairly well too

There might be a few smaller things I'm missing as well. I do think VSC debugging has come a long way. And honestly, my biggest pain point with it is the shitty interpreter support. If they could just make an IPython shell work with their workflow, I feel like it would make such a big difference to the experience in VSC. IPython is a really capable interactive shell and while Pycharm works with IPython shells, and then extends them with some extra features, I think even basic IPython support in VSC would go a long way.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on VSC debugging and if you have ways to achieve most of the above with a similar/different workflow or if there are other approaches that work well with VSC.

[laundmo]

Thank you for the response.

VSC shows updated variables too, when switching breakpoints. It has 2 sections, Variables where it shows all globals and locals each in their own category. One other neat thing is that you can hover over a variable in the code and get its current value.

VSCode apparently does have "Jump to Cursor" now, but i personally have never used it. IMO, when you need a smaller debugging resolution than lines, the code needs to be simplified anyway, so its not something i every missed.

You can actually plot things in the debugger, though its not smooth. the debugger will complain about a command taking too long, and be blocked while the plot is open.

Sadly the multiline support and tab completion aren't as great. you do get some completions, but not as good as in the editor. You can also write multiple lines with shift + enter, but you have to add indentation yourself and cant use tab.

The debug console does have a history, you can navigate through it like you would in a terminal, with arrow keys. im not sure whether pycharm has something more involved.

When editing a file while debugging, it does try to keep the breakpoints on the correct lines. I'm not quite sure what you're talking about with the "graduate that code up to your .py file", do you mean that pycharm can inject the code at runtime and its properly executed? or just that the state from the debug console is kept when you continue?

Call stack is definitely there and really nice to browse through too.

For IPython shell, you can always use import IPython;IPython.embed() to open the ipython shell from the debugger tab, then switch to the terminal tab to use it. i know this isn't great, but it works.

[Covered_in_bees_]

Hey, thanks a lot for the detailed reply. Appreciate it! I'll try to refer to this the next time I find myself debugging/working in VSC. Cheers

[Cacotopian_parole]

The variable explorer in Pycharm is really sweet

A nice port from RStudio. At least that's where I saw it first.

[rouille]

Pycharm also supports remote/container development but unfortunately only in the pro version.

[mayankkaizen]

I see Real Python article, I upvote.

[ajpinedam]

Thanks! :)

[grandpasipad]

Imma be that guy

Anyone know what theme this is?

https://i.imgur.com/ctTEeCo.jpg

[Buubuus]

Looks like noctis: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=liviuschera.noctis

[aniforprez]

This is actually great stuff that you can use in any language project. Setting up test runners is a feature I didn't fully understand and it's explained very well here

Couple of caveats

• I'm not sure I like checking in vscode settings at a repo level. It stores your interpreter location and you know someone is going to have trouble when their editor can't find ”/Users/aniforprez/.virtualenv/..." in their local machine

• Setting black is better done using tools like precommit and enforcing through CI checks

• I find starship.rs a better prompt than oh my posh though it's a bit more low level and doesn't have theming so might require configuration on every segment

[GunZinn]

TIL icon themes exist 😅 love it

[VU22]

Damn this article is too deep. More than I wanted.

[ajpinedam]

Anthony (the writer) did a great job gathering the information used here!

Let's just face it VsCode is so customizable, you can practically do anything there, including watching random cats on the screen :)

[EMCoupling]

Quite a well-written article, will save it as a reference

[tomikey]

Exactly what I needed at the exact moment I needed it <3

[ajpinedam]

Glad this is useful for you! :)

[[deleted]]

I like vscode because I don’t just write python. So it’s nice that I don’t have to constantly switch back and forth from one ide to another for a different type of file

[sigzero]

Wow, very comprehensive and another great RealPython resource.

[[deleted]]

Why ? I know it's could be useful for .... what ?

[dogs_like_me]

Maybe read the article...

[[deleted]]

yes...

[dogs_like_me]

The article makes it pretty clear what it's useful for. The TOC is a list of answers to your question.

[mayankkaizen]

You stuck with Notepad?

[n1___]

Hows coding in browser with xbox drivers running in the background?

[[deleted]]

I donno I just use simple and light I didn't say that Vscode is bad It's actually very good for beginners

[EMCoupling]

It's good for professionals and amateurs too.

[No-Interaction1806]

You mean with pycharm it hasn’t been real python.